Friendly Mani Challenge

Sanita and I are real life polish buddies. We go polish shopping together and compare notes and share ideas. She came up with the idea of a mani challenge. We both have very distinct likes and dislikes when it comes to polish and nail art. She wouldn’t wear some of what I wear and visa versa. Her favourite colour is blue and when it comes to polish mine is pink. She wears blue polish 90% of the time and of course I wear a lot of pink too. We had a good giggle one day when we went polish shopping. We had nothing particular in mind and didn’t go to buy specific polishes, we were just browsing and picked up a few that we liked. When we went to pay we realized she was standing with a handful of blue polish and I had a handful of pink polish. We like what we like. She has said on many occasions that she wouldn’t wear pink unless it was part of the nail art and I’ve been iffy about wearing blues, especially darker blues since I did my butterfly wing mani.

The idea was that we would dictate colours and art to each other. We switched polishes for the challenge. It didn’t take me long to decide that I wanted her to try pink. She also doesn’t like texture on her nails, although she has tried a few essence textures recently and since giving them a chance she has realized they don’t bother her as much as she thought they would. I wanted her to feel the China Glaze texture as it is quite a bit rougher than the essence ones and China Glaze has a blue texture she would love. Sanita also doesn’t like hearts like I do, so I had to include that as well! I gave her my China Glaze Unrefined and told her to stamp hearts in white over the texture (something she has been wanting to try) and gave her freedom with her accent nail/s. I was so excited to see what she had done. We both did our nails on Sunday night and left the reveal till Monday morning. It was really so exciting! (for me anyway 😉 )

Sanita’s mani

I absolutely ADORE how her mani turned out! I love how the white stamping looks over the texture. The middle finger is my favourite! She decided to really go against her grain and include some studs too. So much of awesome! I am stoked with the outcome of her mani, I really am. I am definitely going to stamp over this texture myself! Perhaps I’ll do some heart stamps over this for Valentine’s Day. Sanita really climbed out of her comfort zone for this mani and even though she hated it when she painted it, she says it has grown on her 🙂 You can find Sanita’s manis on her Pinterest board or on Twitter.

Of course I was given blue polishes to work with. She was quite nice about giving me a light blue as a main colour and the dark blue intended for accent. She gave me free reign and I was allowed to do any type of art I wanted to. I was completely stumped. I had some ideas, but nothing felt right. I toyed with the idea of studs and just felt meh about it. I hit google and stumbled across this mani. I instantly knew that I wanted to do something like that! The polishes I had to work with were China Glaze Bahamian Escape and essence the boy next door.

As usual I started off with a base coat and painted all of my nails except my ring fingers with 2 coats of the Bahamian Escape. I also painted two coats of the boy next door on my ring fingers. I sealed it in with a coat of Seche Vite to dry it quickly so that I could stamp. I used my essence white stampy polish and the bottom image of PUEEN 26 to stamp all of my nails. I’ve worked out a stamping strategy that works quite well for me. Stamp first, think later. No umming and aahing. Just stamp. Worked a shot with these and I didn’t have to redo any of them! I decided to add a diamante to my accent nails for a little bling and an extra sparkle. I sealed it all in with another coat of Seche Vite. My results:

My blue mani

I’ve gotten loads of positive feedback about these nails. Sanita and I decided not to tell anyone that these are colours we would definitely not choose ourselves and gauge the reactions. Everyone has loved the blue on me and the pink on her. Just goes to show that our tastes aren’t necessarily only what looks best on us. At no point have I hated this mani, but I am growing more fond of it the longer I wear it. The dark blue is actually really, really pretty. I’m not sure if I would buy it for myself, but I certainly LOVED the white stamping over it. Finally got the contrast right 😉

What do you guys think? Would you leave your comfort zone and do a challenge like this?